2016-07-6

In today’s episode, I subject myself to the scrutiny of the unwashed masses on a personals site. With annotations.

draughtsman

With such a profile name choice, will anyone realize the intimation that a certain kind of upper-middle class life always devolves into an inheritance drama?
My self-summary
iconoclast and horticulturalist
here for 30 days

For better or for worse, these probably are the two main things that define me. And if you’re going to make a big move like calling yourself an iconoclast, you should follow through. What better way than thumbing my nose at the ridiculous economic calculus of this website, which supposes I’m going to pay a ridiculous sum of money over many months to “find someone”. There’s another benefit: anyone who picks up on this has demonstrated his cognitive skills.
What I’m doing with my life
Being an original.

But isn’t everyone doing that?
I’m really good at
Whatever I need to be good at…within reason.
Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food
books: I’ve been a terrible reader recently, but did listen to the unabridged In Cold Blood this spring. In my youth I liked an assortment of classic bildungsromans from The Red and the Black to Look Homeward Angel to Siddhartha. Also liked critical theory like Stanley Fish.
movies: early Peter Greenaway, obviously…David Lynch, Todd Haynes, Francois Ozon, the usual indie stuff. The last movie I saw in a movie theater was Carol, which should give you fair warning about how ridiculously pretentious my tastes are. I’m pretty sure the last “blockbuster” I saw in a theater was the first Harry Potter.
music: formerly a britpop fanatic, I’m mostly listening to classical these days or obscure electronica

yes, warn them. You hope at this point that 80% of people have already skipped along to another profile
The six things I could never do without
I have to admit right now I’m finding the election a pretty lurid train wreck to follow, so one thing I couldn’t do without are political websites like The Hill, Politico, WP.com, etc.

On a typical Friday night I am

watering

honesty is important, right?

You should message me if
if you can’t stand small dogs…
But, in all seriousness, I’m terrible at marketing myself in this way, as you can see. I’m in every sense Paul Fussell’s Category X – outside the American class system, and by extension, the American belief system. I’m liberal about many political issues, but do not identify with either party. As gay guys go, my knowledge of celebrity and pop culture is almost non-existent. My main hobby is serious horticulture…and in fact that’s probably my least geriatric hobby! There are no fronts: you get what you see. I’m sure I’m not here for the reason most of you are, but that doesn’t mean we might not have something in common. I’m a ‘software engineer’ if what I do for a living is important to you.

The interesting thing is every review ever of Fussell’s guide to the American class system has been confounded by the real meaning of Category X. Some see it as simply a joke. Some think it no longer applies in today’s world, or is something radically different. Clearly though, the whole work is a clever farce and category X is just the cherry on top.

2014-11-22

Tom Shales’s hilarious review in the Washington Post was right. This thing is basically a dog. It feels like a young screenwriter’s awkward pastiche of Faulkner and Williams with a bit of Whit Stillman – which might not be a concept completely destined for failure, but is certainly one that’s a potential minefield of faux-pas. Some of them are structural: you know halfway through what is going to happen, and that makes the denouement seem even more rushed and perfunctory than it does. As short a film as it is, it almost feels too long. Some problems involve casting. Prinze Jr.’s performance is exceptionally weak and implausible as the likely half brother to Josh Hamilton. He doesn’t have the range for roles like this: settling down as Mr. Michelle Geller was a very wise move for him. Tori Spelling is similarly out of her depth. There are even odd little stylistic anomalies: I’ve never seen an upper-middle or upper class person drinking Pepsi in my life. So the Pepsi & Rum scene is either baffling or some strange attempt at an in-joke. Paid product placement, perhaps?
I give it 3 stars instead of 2 because there are a few flashes of cleverness in the writing. “A mother doesn’t spy, a mother pays attention” is exactly the sort of thing an icy Prussian hausfrau might say.
If you want a fun indie drama of this period, there are better offerings like The Opposite of Sex.

The only believable parts of the bible are those that show God to be a real jerk. Which is most of the old testament. Not that anyone should like a guy who would send his own kid downstairs to be murdered, … by the people he’s supposed to be saving, … from a sin their remote ancestors were tricked into, … by his own former #2, … which he could have prevented but he allowed to happen anyway, … even though he’s omniscient and knew all this was going to happen all along???

2013-09-2

Someone should make a youtube video of Lady Gaga’s Applause set to images of various mass shootings.
(This is not an indictment of Gaga – far from it. Whether or not she’s a “great artist” she’s a pop music genius; and whether intentional or not, her song has captured the West’s nascent 21th century zeitgeist.)